If you want to read a full transcript of this video, please find it below.

If you would like to read how I think that this video compares to other videos about egg laying chickens on YouTube, click here.

Start of Video Transcript

There are so many chicken breeds out there and it’s hard to choose which ones you are going to get your backyard coop.

Today I am going to show you three of my favorites but I’m sure you are going to have success with. Let’s go.

I’m Becky I used to live in the consumer rat race just like you. but one day I’ve had enough so I sold it all.

I moved to the country and built my own log cabin with my own two hands.

Now I spend my time discovering new ways of living a simple healthy lifestyle with more free time and way less stress. then sharing what I’ve learnt with you. welcome to Becky’s homestead.

I’m sure that if you have found out are a million different chicken breeds to choose from. it makes it kind of hard. so I am going to show you three breeds that I have that I absolutely love. and I’m sure that your love them too.

This is my absolute favourite breed of chicken. it is a black astralorp. They are so people friendly and so gentle that even I can catch them and that is a miracle because I never can catch chickens and these chickens just duck down and let me catch them. I love that about them.

As you can see she’s a nice black colour and when the sun shines on her right here where oh where I’m patting her on the back it’s like a shiny green colour and it looks really pretty.

They have black legs and they have white toenails hair on their little feet. this breed gets along with all the other hens in my coop- they are just no trouble at all.

This is my favourite this gets a 10 out of 10 in my book. so if you want a really nice breed of chicken for your family in your backyard coop, I would highly highly recommend the Black Australorp.

Buff Orpington

This golden beauty Is a buff Orpington. This is another one of my favorites they are very pretty to look at. it’s a poofy gold chicken.

They are fantastic egg layers, they get along in the coop nicely with the other hens, these are cold hardy as well.

She’s not very happy being on display. they also come in other colours.

There are white orpingtons, black orpingtons and there is also blue orpingtons and this is a buff Orpington which is gold.

It’s a very nice chicken, it has white legs and white toenails and it lays brown eggs. she’s a little Chatty but she’s a very nice chicken. I highly recommend this breed for your backyard coop.

Barred Rock

This is a Barred Rock (number three) another cold hardy, people friendly great laying hen. One thing I want to mention about the Barred Rock though that is very important. If you have just a small backyard coop, you have to have all barred rocks because there a little bossy and can be kind of mean if there are other breeds in the Coop with them. so if you’re just going to have three or four chickens just have barred rocks. or you can do what we do and we have a great big coop and we have two barred rocks mixed in there with our other breeds the barred rock is a very nice backyard chicken.

This is Mario- the biggest chicken of them all. He is so timid and he looks like the wimpiest dog on the planet. But Mario protect the Coop all night long and nothing gets our chickens. You wouldn’t think this little dog could do the job to chase away a fox a raccoon an opossum But it just goes to show that even a small dog has a protective instincts.

There you have it, 3 my favourite chicken breeds. I think that if you choose those for your backyard coop, you won’t be disappointed.

If you want to read from the full transcript of the video, click here.

So what are the best bits about this video?

Firstly, this video is just over three minutes long and so it will not take up much of your time. It is perfect if you have done of research on this topic already.

Secondly, this video lists eight breeds of chickens that are good egg layers.

Thirdly, there is no talking on the video. The information is presented as a slideshow. Therefore you can still watch this video if you are with other people and it will not disturb them.

And the worst bits?

Although eight breeds are listed (together with a photo) there is no additional information to help you.

Also, although nearly half a million people have watched this video, the video was created four years ago.

The person who created the video only made one other video (which was also created four years ago) and so the channel isn’t active and that won’t help you in terms of asking any follow up questions that you might have. No comments have been made about this video.

In this 10 minute video by Becky’s Homestead the subject of what to feed your chickens is discussed.

If you want to watch the video, then please go ahead but if you prefer to read a full transcript of it then please find it below.

Start of Video Transcript

In this episode I’ll be showing you what I feed my hens so I get good tasty eggs. Also I’ll be reading a letter from one of my viewers. Stay tuned.

Hi I’m Becky. I moved to the country and built a log cabin of my dreams. And now I enjoy the simple life. This is the life of making things, growing a garden, raising animals, connecting with my community and making a home. This is Becky’s homestead.

Today I’m going to show you what I feed my hens. We love our eggs and we like steady production from our chickens and I have found in order to get that, you have to feed them really well. So here are some of the foods that I feed my hens so they lay good eggs.

We love our eggs and we like to try to get a steady supply. I found the best way to do that is to feed your hens really well. I’m going to start with this on right here, this is just the typical egg layer, you can buy it in the store that’s already put together for you. It’s ground up and there’s different vitamins in that if you read the bag. And it literally looks just like cornmeal. It’s kind of just powdery cornmeal and the chickens do like that and they eat that up nice. So I’m going to put this back, let me show you the next one.

Well actually I’ll leave a little on here so you can see the difference between all of them. Okay so here’s a little pile of cornmeal, it’s called chicken layer. Now some layer comes in pellets and some layer comes in crumbles and different things. I like this one it just seems more natural.

I try to go with whole real foods to feed my chickens. I just think they get better nutrition that way. This here is called steamed rolled barley and that’s what it looks like, it kind of looks like oatmeal, it’s smaller than oatmeal though and it’s a little darker in color than oatmeal. Steamed rolled barley chickens love it, so they’ll peck that up.

The next one is steamed rolled oats. I’ll put that on this side, and as you can see it’s whiter than the barley. Slightly, I mean I’m not sure if that’s clear but they look really similar. You can wet these 2 if you wanted to soak them a little bit and they would absorb the water and it would be more like oatmeal. And they like it either way, wet or dry.

And then what I do, oh let me just show you this last corn and then we’ll talk about price. And what I do also which the chickens like, is I just buy whole corn and some people buy cracked corn but chickens like whole corn just fine. They’ll just get that whole piece and gulp it down there.

They have no problems with it at all. Of course if it’s a little chicky baby it’s not going to be able to eat the whole corn so you might want to start out with cracked corn. The reason I chose whole corn is it’s cheaper. It’s less expensive. Now I’m going to tell you the price of some of these feeds that I just showed you at the picnic table and I’m going to show you the bags they come in and how much they cost.

We’ll start over here with the whole corn. This is a 50 pound bag of whole corn. It costs around 8 dollars right here where I live. And I mean that is a lot of food for 8 dollars. The cracked corn is more expensive. My suggestion would be just get the whole corn unless you’re feeding the little chicky babies.

Next we have the steamed rolled barley. Again this is a 50 pound bag of the steamed rolled barley. Same stuff I showed you on the table and this cost 16 dollars for a 50 pound bag. Once again that is a great price for a lot of food.

Down here, I have used part of this, but this is also a 50 pound bag and this is the chicken layer. It comes like in that crumbled stuff so you squeeze that, that was 9 dollars for a 50 pound bag.

And then here is a 50 pound bag of steamed rolled oats. The oats are the most expensive out of all these feeds that I’m feeding my chickens. The oats are 18 dollars for a 50 pound bag. You can shop around and there might be a very slight difference in price, but on average that is how much they cost.

18 dollars for the rolled steamed oats, 9 dollars for 50 pounds of the layer, 16 dollars for the steamed rolled barley 50 pound bag and 8 dollars for a 50 pound bag of whole corn.

I like to feed all these to my chickens that way it keeps them healthy and it keeps the eggs coming on a continual basis. Okay let’s go feed the hens and see if they laid any eggs. I like to throw some food out here in the yard because I think it gives the hens something to do during the day.

They like to pick and scratch around and I think it makes the little hen life interesting. The best part of the chickens is when I come and collect the eggs. My girls are afternoon layers so I’ll get more later. Our ducks are very happy in their little triangle chicken coop.

I’d like to give you a little ducky update. She’s still sitting on her nest and from my calculations they should be hatching any day now. Mr ducky comes to the bucket entrance and protects her now so she calls him over. They’re very, very protective of their nest at this point. I’m so excited I can’t wait to see a little duck pop out of there.

Now I’m going to read you a letter. This one is from Safie. Success. My chickens, bantams, have laid eggs. We are very happy, but we have discovered a rooster so we will be getting him out right away. If we don’t get rid of our rooster, are the eggs still safe to eat? We are new to chickens and will need some help with eggs and such. So could you give us some advice?

Okay. It doesn’t matter if the rooster is in there. You can eat fertile eggs which is from a rooster, or non fertile eggs if you keep just hens. Either way the eggs are edible. When there’s a rooster in the pen the eggs will be fertile and your hens might want to sit on them and lay them. So the only difference would be make sure you collect your eggs everyday or two.

This next one is from Donna. And she writes, I’ve been watching your podcasts for quite some time. After watching your podcast on how to harness your donkey, and the beginning driving lessons, I had to drop you a line to let you know how much I enjoy the information. In fact I have enjoyed all of your podcasts.

This particular one brought back memories for me. When my kids were young we had Quarter horses. But I wouldn’t let them ride by themselves. So I brought them a very gentle little Welsh Shetland mix pony. And we had such wonderful times on our pony cart rides. Several times I picked them up at school in the cart and spent an extra hour giving their class mates pony rides around the block while all of the parents waited patiently until their kids got their ride. That’s been so many, make that many, many years ago.

And I had forgotten exactly how to harness up for a cart until I saw your podcast. I always wanted a donkey but never did get one. Your Doodles looks like a very sweet little guy. You must have put in a lot of time with him for him to be so easy to handle. Thanks so much for your podcast, I look forward to seeing you hooked to the cart. Donna. Well that’s nice Donna and Doodles is a very nice little donkey, we treat all our animals nicely but we expect them to behave.

I’m also looking forward to hitch him to the cart which will be soon. Stay tuned. Thanks for watching, please email me with any questions or suggestions. Happy homesteading.

Bye bye. You can tell they’re well fed, they’re not very interested. You’re supposed to act like you’re staving and this is delicious. You can’t step on those it’s going to hurt your feet silly. Are you sliding? You’re sliding. Lay down. He’s sliding. Are you sliding? Well lay down. Lay down you won’t slide. Lay down. Oh there you go perfect.

In this five and a half minute video, the issue of keeping chickens in the urban environment (London) is discussed.

If you want to watch the video then go ahead but if you want to read a full transcript of the video then please find it below.

Start of Video Transcript

A lot of people would love to keep chickens but they live in an urban space, so I’ve come to East London to show you it can be done.

Meet Martin Williams, he keeps three chickens and he’s been doing this for two years.

Fresh eggs is a big driver, and letting the kids have some animals, some pets really that they could play with but which were useful instead of cats or a dog that just ate things and don’t give you anything back.

And also they help with the gardening, they’re good with the garden eating pests… and getting rid of rubbish that we’ve got as well.

Do they really lay a lot of eggs?

During the summer and the spring and summer and autumn we get loads of eggs. Usually three eggs a day.

But each of the chickens will lay between 5 and 6 eggs a week and so you get a real decent stack of eggs.

Do you know which hen laid those?

yea the the white one the big one, the black one lays the dark brown eggs and the little one lays white eggs, but smaller.

So they are properly free range in a Hackney way

I mean that small space, and they would be, if they were free range chickens you would buy eggs from the supermarket, they wouldn’t have as much space as they’ve got in there.

Hello little chickens, Don’t be afraid. This is a very interesting plumage.

This is a very interesting plummage

What is this?

She’s a particular breed, she’s Poland is just one of the crested breeds. And she’s the easiest one to catch because she can’t see you coming from behind.

So she’s molting, does that mean she’s not laying eggs at the moment.

Well they tend to stop laying eggs or slow down in the winter anyways, so at the minute we only have one chicken laying eggs.

But come this spring they’ll get going again. It tends to be November through to maybe February that we get less eggs. They’re not quite as “pretty animals” as your dog or cat might be.

The kids know that they’re going to get eaten at some point and they are pretty OK about it.

Brutal! Brutal!

I think it’s important the kids know where food comes from, and know what meat is, and they are very practical about it and quite happy to eat things that have been shot, eat a rabbit or something like that. They know exactly what it all is.

Oh cover your poor ears Poland, I’m going to let you down now, there you are.

So this is an Eggloo which is a kind of quite a posh urban chicken house.

Yea these, this is the big Eggloo as well the Cube and you can have up to ten chickens in there although I think that it Would be a bit crowded. But we built our own cage, a run to attach to it, because that gave the chickens a bit more space and fitted in the space we had in the garden.

So you built all this?

Yea, this is just, we just made this up ourselves and attached the Eggloo to it as best we could.

This was £400 and then you put this all up, and they’re not really sort of paying you back in eggs particularly.

We pay very little money to feed them and we are getting 12 eggs a week and which when they’re organic expensive eggs that’s well over 2 pounds a week worth of eggs, so it wouldn’t take that long to pay back the £500 we spent on getting them in the first place.

And how do you find the Eggloos? Is it easy to kind of clean out and everything?

The real advantages, because it’s plastic, it really is easy to clean. It’s easy to keep pests and you can get various mites living in the wood and things, and it’s much easier to get rid of them in this kind of thing.

It’s also quite practical, it’s got a tray underneath which you can take out with all the poo on it and it’s got a separate nesting box that you can easily clear out and a handy hatch on the side where you can get your eggs out without having to open up the whole thing.

So it’s quite well thought out, they are a bit expensive but it does save you a lot of money and messing about in the long run.

So you’ve got this feed and you’ve got scraps obviously

Yep they do really well on scraps. Just leftover stale crusts, they love apple cores that’s one of the kids Marmite on toast we actually tend to give them Marmite on toast anyway because it has a good vitamin supplement for them.

I like a chicken that knows what it wants.

They eat a huge number of scraps from the garden because we grow quite a lot of our own food. You have to net stuff off, especially little seedlings, they’ll kill them off.

But as soon as the plants are bigger and more established then they’re actually, they’re more useful cause they eat so many slugs out from around the base, even if they do have to bite the edge of your cabbage, it’s worth it.

We break up all our leaves and chop them in there.instead and they break it down and poo all over them. So they rot down a lot quicker and we get a lot more compost and better compost as a result of the chickens.

Now there were four chickens, there’s now three. What has occurred, because this is obviously a sad story.

One day the fox came to visit and took one of the chickens. And since then they’ve been a lot more cooped up they come out in the garden while we’re out here but if we are in the house we put them back in the cage again.

So the big question, how long are these ones going to last and are you going to eat them?

Well they lay eggs from around 2-3 years. And then their egg laying really slows down and We’re not going to keep them if they’re not laying eggs because we haven’t the space to get new ones and I’m not feeding chickens that don’t provide us anything back.

I think the trick is to kill them early when they’re still tender enough to eat and miss out on some of the eggs, or do you kill them later when they’re probably not fit for a great deal of cooking but at least you’ve had the maximum number eggs.

If I’m honest we were going to do the early one but we never got around to buying new chickens so by default they’ve ended up lasting a bit longer.